


The Gravedigger, The Gods, and The Mortal Voice

by felinedetached



Series: The Horrors You See [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Title: In Which Rose Lalonde is an Idiot and Binds Herself to Horrorterrors, Alternate Universe - Cults, Body Horror, F/F, Grimdark, Incest, Kinda, bodyswaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 12:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12794301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinedetached/pseuds/felinedetached
Summary: For months after, you dreamed of void-bright eyes in a void-darksomething, flesh melting off bones, the cat you had tried oh so hard to bring back watching you with eyes that were not its own.Sometimes, you did not know if those dreams were dreams or nightmares.





	The Gravedigger, The Gods, and The Mortal Voice

It was stupid, really. Thinking you could do something this _big_ , this _great_ , without paying a price. Without them noticing. It was stupid to think it would work, and work right. You were overconfident, believed you had abilities you did not, believed that the rules given to the rest of humanity did not apply to you.

 

They still did, of course.

 

For months after, you dreamed of void-bright eyes in a void-dark _something_ , flesh melting off bones, the cat you had tried oh so hard to bring back watching you with eyes that were not its own.

 

Sometimes, you did not know if those dreams were dreams or nightmares.

 

Sometimes, in those idle moments where all rests silent and still, perfect and untouched, you wondered if either of those labels fit.

 

Sometimes, you wondered if those dreams were more than just dreams.

 

* * *

 

“They’ve taken an interest in you,” a girl tells you, once. She is older than you, with the same painted-black lips and deep blue eyelids, and the same curved half-smile as The Warden occasionally adopts when he looks at you.

 

“Who?” you ask, naive. Idiotic as well. You already knew who.

 

So when she says, “Well, the Gods, of course!” with a vivid-bright smile despite the darkness of her lips and her eyelids and her clothes, you reply “Of course,” knowing exactly who she means.

 

* * *

 

The Warden calls you not long after that encounter. When you enter his office, he does that curved half-smile that you’ve come to relate to him and gestures for you to sit down in the chair in front of his desk. You smile, tightly, carefully, _kindly_ , and accept, lowering yourself into the leather.

 

“Lalonde,” he says, “they call for you.”

 

That, you know. You can feel them, tendrils under your skin, _hooks_ with no exit wounds, pulling you, inexorably, towards the abyss where they reign. The whispers in your head speak of tangling, of runes of longevity, magic, health, _immortality_. Death.

 

“They do,” you reply, “but that is not why you called me.”

 

“It is, partially,” he counters, “we wish for you to become their vassal, of sorts. Our way to communicate with those beyond this realm.”

 

“You wish for me to become their mortal voice.”

 

“Yes.”

 

You lean back in the chair, thinking of the whispers and of your cat, and you agree.

 

* * *

 

They dress you in sheer black robes, almost see-through, to the point where their painted runes of communion and offering are visible, despite being on your covered back and arms. The ceremony involves the entire church and the girl from before whispers “ _good luck_ ” before being promptly silenced by your escort. You smile at her in thanks, and she smiles back.

 

The beginning is chanting, echoing through the air around you, until a brilliant purple-black wrenches reality open and-

 

-and you open your not-eyes to find yourself void-light and void-dark with the earth held in your embrace and you look down to your own eyes lit with void-light and-

 

-and you’re back in your body, or, what you think is your body, with pink and blue-black hovering over you and you reach up to touch the cheek of whoever is here with you and-

 

-and you’re looking down at yourself, at your void-light eyes, watching as painted lips open in a silent scream and black _things_ move under the skin of your arms and you know it is not you who is suffering it is her and-

 

-you’re back to yourself, and she is looking down at you with concern and pity but all you see is the void and the void-light and you _laugh_ , because everyone forgets the void-light.

 

Light is comforting until it is all-consuming, until it is all you can see, the absence of being, much like the void except worse because you don’t expect it.

 

Why else, after all, would those infernal chambers deep in the dungeons be _white_?

 

And finally, blissfully, the void-light fades into void-dark, and the chanting fades into nothingness.

 

* * *

 

When you wake, it is once again to pink eyes and blue-black eyelids, painted-black lips twitching up into a smile as you wake. She sits you up, offers you water, and strokes her hand through your hair as you slowly adjust to whatever your life is now. In the corners of the room you see void-dark, and void-light reflects onto her face, and you’re not sure if you can count what this is as life.

 

When she deems you ready, she removes your robe, the sheer material raising goosebumps along your arms, now covered in intricate, swirling black designs that remind you much of the limbs you held the world with.

 

She scrubs the runes from your back, careful not to hurt your too-sensitive skin with the rough cloth, stating apologetically that it is the softest material there is in the castle. When she is done, you roll back over and she looks at you with stars in her eyes.

 

“You’re beautiful,” she tells you, and the Gods in your head preen.

 

“Who are you?” you ask, when you finally get your voice back.

 

“I am the Caretaker, the Missing One, and the One They Wished to be You,” she tells you, voice soft.

 

“I am the Mortal Voice, the Vassal, the Seer in the Void-Light,” you respond, unsure of the words rolling smoothly off your tongue.

 

“I was meant for you,” she tells you, and the Gods in your head vocalise their agreement, a chorus of not-words and not-voices that ring in a terrible harmony.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, a void- _something_ will crawl from your mouth, gushing out in a deep black liquid that you barely notice as it spills from your ears and your nose but choke on as it forces its way up your throat. The Caretaker tells you even your tears run black, streaking your face with grey.

 

“It does not leave,” she says, “it is as if your face is stained.”

 

“Do you still think I’m beautiful?” you ask when she brings it up, and she smiles like the sun and the void-light and says “Of course!” and you believe her.

 

* * *

 

Weeks after the ceremony, a cat in a suit walks into your room, head high and four eyes lit white with void-light.

 

“The dead cat came back,” the Caretaker observes, and you laugh and laugh and laugh because this is what got you noticed, and they have rewarded you for your service. Kindly, she does not comment on your hysteria.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, in the room of prayer, when no one is nearby, you rage and scream and howl.

 

“What have you done to me!” you cry on one such occasion, and you are shown your own body, missing its muscle and meat and fat and flesh and you see the runes for many things embedded deep into your bone.

 

They tell you that you did this to yourself with what you tried to do, and add that it is an honour.

 

Sometimes, you believe them.

 

* * *

 

“Have you danced before?” The Warden asks, entering your quarters with not even a knock. You are their Mortal Voice, their Vassal now, and your privacy is nonexistent. Most days, you cannot bring yourself to care.

 

“No,” you tell him, and he takes you to a group of priests who teach you to dance, and the Gods in your head howl in delight.

 

“You will perform, tonight,” one says, and you nod, gravely.

 

* * *

 

That night, you give your body over to the Gods and watch them spin and dance from your place holding the world far above.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, the temple crumbles. You stand in the middle of the rubble, eyes of void-light and swirling ‘tattoos’ of void-dark, and you grieve for pink eyes and blue-black eyelids, a smile of void-light and the people you could not save.

 

“You did not offer me power,” you comment to nothingness, and then you fall like a marionette with its strings cut.

 

We are sorry, they tell you, we did not know. You will forever be ours, but you can rest until we find a need for you again.

 

With no voice and no body, you thank them, and you sink into the warm embrace of a nothingness deeper than void.

 

* * *

 

Hundreds of years later, a young gravedigger’s spade hits the slowly rotting roof of an ancient coffin. The one said to reside in it was powerful, and rich, and was conceivably buried with those riches.

 

And so the young gravedigger boy brushes the remaining dirt off the coffin, lifts the embellished lid and finds nothing but bones. Bones covered in ornate, swirling symbols, bones with a millennia-old ritual carved deep into them.

 

Bones that had, for the first time in centuries, finally seen the moonlight.

 

And as the young gravedigger boy closed and reburied the coffin, a girl in clothing that did not fit the time period, a girl with swirling black tattoos winding up her arms and legs, stood and watched.

 

And when he left, she turned her face up to the moon, painted eyelids sliding shut over purple eyes, and she danced.

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, im on tumblr [@felinedetached](https://felinedetached.tumblr.com/)


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